When Jorge Vilda announced the list of the 28 pre-selected soccer players for this summer’s European Championship, a name that nobody expected sounded, that of Salma Paralluelo. The young Villarreal soccer player was the great surprise of the Spain call-up, even for herself: “I didn’t expect it at all”, acknowledged this player who had never before been called up with the senior team.
At just 18 years old, Paralluelo has already carved out a niche for himself among the best with his first call-up with the absolute no more and no less than for a European Championship. But the ambition of this versatile athlete does not end here and she also competes at the highest level in athletics. Both in soccer and athletics, she has stood out for her talent and his precocity. She debuted in the Second Division with Zaragoza at the age of 15 and at the same age she became the youngest athlete in history to participate in an absolute European Championship. She was told that she would have to decide on a sport. She didn’t and today she continues to triumph on the grass and on the slopes.
His ability and his passion for both sports have made it impossible for him to opt for one of them and he combines them by doing real juggling. This season he has even competed in both disciplines in less than 24 hours when he participated on a Saturday in the mixed relay event with his team, Playas de Castellón, and on Sunday he played with Villarreal against Betis. And not only was he capable of making this double effort, but he did it with flying colors, making his team the national mixed relay champion and scoring a brace with the yellow submarine in the Primera Iberdrola match.
In Athletics, she collects medals and personal bests, and in soccer, she was part of that golden generation, together with the Catalans Cata Coll and Claudia Pina, who was proclaimed champion of Europe and of the U-17 world in 2018. Born in Zaragoza, of parents who emigrated from Equatorial Guinea, he moved to Castellón in 2019 when he found a place that allowed him to continue growing in the two sports he loves.
Since then he has trained at the Playas de Castellón Athletics Club and played for Villarreal, which he helped achieve promotion to the Primera Iberdrola. A category that, unfortunately, he would take time to enjoy. In April 2021 he tore the cruciate ligaments in his left knee in one of the last league games with the yellow team. After being in dry dock for several months, he returned to the tracks and the playing fields, where he continued to shine. His first goal in the First Division turned Spain around. It was against Barcelona, ??at the Johan Cruyff, shortly after having reappeared and debuting in the highest category of football. Paralluelo got rid of two azulgranas with a backheel and sent a very powerful left-footed shot to the top corner of the goal defended by Gemma Font. One of the best goals remembered this season. Villarreal would end up beaten in the second half (6-1), but the Aragonese had already left their mark.
“This season he has not had a very long performance due to the injury, but he is decisive, differential to the space and can contribute a lot to this team”, detailed Vilda when explaining the first call-up with the absolute of this young footballer. He reappeared in March and has only played eight games, scoring three goals. “It’s not only the speed of movement, but he has football speed because he has quality. He is left-handed, he can play on the left wing, he has also been playing up front with another player next to him and that versatility is important for us”, explained Vilda in an interview with La Vanguardia. Everyone places the young Aragonese among the discarded for the final list, but the coach insists that she “has options to be among the 23”. Who knows if she will ring the bell again.
For now, the call of the absolute has altered the tight competitive schedule that awaited him this summer. Paralluelo will surely miss the European Under-19 soccer tournament that takes place in the Czech Republic from June 26 to July 9, but if she is not finally included among the 23 players who will travel to England, she would still have time to play two Under-19 World Cups. 20, one in each sport. From the 1st to the 6th of August in Cali (Colombia) she will compete in the world athletics event, for which she has not yet qualified, something that she would have to achieve on June 11 in the final of the Iberdrola Clubs League. And the athlete would end the summer playing the U-20 Soccer World Cup in Costa Rica (August 10-28).
A real physical, mental and logistical madness that seems difficult to sustain over time, as her coach at Villarreal, Sara Monforte, admits: “Until now she has combined it, but there will come a time when she will have to choose, and she knows it. ”. “I have never pressured her, she has to decide. I always tell her that she has to do what she feels like,” explains Monforte, who has known her for many years: “I met her in my last years as a player at Zaragoza in a summer tournament when she was about 13 years old. Despite her age, she was named the best player in the tournament.”
It was she who told her that she had been included in the pre-convened list for the European Championship: “She was amazed, she couldn’t believe it,” explains her coach, who is full of praise for the quality of the Aragonese: “She can reach being one of the best Spanish soccer players in history, I have no doubts. She has things that I have not seen anyone do, not Alexia, not Jenni… ”.
Monforte also highlights her ability to absorb all the technical concepts, but she is aware that she is still developing: “She is a great player, but she has to do it, she has to take a step. She now she only spends 50% of her time with her and yet she looks at what level she has! ”, She points out. And it is that the coach explains that until her injury, Salma Paralluelo divided her training sessions, dedicating three days to soccer and three to athletics: “And even so, she always trains like the best and you can never tell her that she does not deserve to play”, remember.
In football and athletics, they have been waiting for her to make a decision for a long time, but the years go by and she does not decide. “Where others see the obligation to choose, we see possibilities to shine in what we set out to do,” her philosophy summed up in an advertising campaign in which Paralluelo refuses to set limits after a decade combining both sports. Now, the call from Jorge Vilda, although at the moment it is only for the pre-list, may have begun to tip the balance: “I feel very privileged, I feel that it is a very good opportunity, that it is a great step for me”, he acknowledged after know their presence among the 28 preselected. If she doesn’t make up her mind, soccer may have already chosen for her.
